Achieving fair global exchange of goods and services and providing global security of energy and food supplies will remove some of the potential precursors for conflict and would prevent the unnecessary loss of life that hostilities bring.
The Workers Party of Britain will endeavour to have open diplomatic relations with all countries regardless of their traditions or values. Whilst we are not pacifists, we are peaceable. Diplomacy and negotiation will be the first resort on every occasion that the potential for conflict arises.
We will avoid war but we will also ensure that we are prepared for it. Our armed forces will be highly trained and equipped with modern, reliable weaponry and equipment. Any threat to our country or our interests will be met with a highly effective military response.
It cannot be right that the Royal Navy has more Admirals, Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals than operational ships. The Workers Party of Great Britain will carry out a top-down review of the Royal Navy, Army, and Air Force to ensure that their structures are lean and efficient. Any savings made from restructuring the leadership and administration of our armed forces will be spent on delivering weaponry and equipment for personnel on the front line.
At this point in time, we recognise NATO as an aggressive military alliance not a defensive one. We are calling for a referendum on membership with a view to a national debate on all our collective security arrangements. Our own position is clear – under current circumstances, we will continue to campaign for Britain to leave NATO as a clear and present danger to the security of the British population and seek new collective security arrangements centred on the protection of peoples and not of states or industries. We will consider future alliances with countries where we have social, political, and economic ties but only where they share common values and only in order to ensure mutual defence.
The Workers Party of Great Britain supports multilateral disarmament and will lead the world in the call for the eradication of nuclear weapons.
We are suspicious of the State’s accumulation of powers under past war conditions which appear to be more about the preservation of the State than the protection of the people. We will undertake a careful review of all emergency powers and related legislation in order to establish whether they represent a threat to civil liberties and of the conditions under which they might be invoked.
Julie Lowe 